SUMMER IN IVYE

For a group of Holocaust survivors, finding themselves actors in a world-class theater production was an incredible turn of events. "We didn't act in this performance", said one participant, "we lived it." This compelling documentary chronicles events that took place during one remarkable summer, when American choreographer Tamar Rogoff staged a large-scale theater production in a forest outside a remote village in Belarus. Assembling a troupe of international actors, Holocaust survivors and local townspeople, Tamar embarked on what she expected to be a journey of self-discovery. Instead, what evolved is an extraordinary and inspiring story of an entire group of people who overcame cultural differences and generations-old hostilities to tell a story that had been kept secret for 50 years. Together they conceived a performance that filled the empty forest with scenes from everyday life, echoing the richness and humor of a time before World War II. Rehearsals and performances took place in the same forest where 2,500 Jews, including 29 of Rogoff's own relatives, were killed in one day in 1942. The Soviet Union had recently collapsed, food was scarce, but spirits were high. The tiny dirt road town was turned upside down with audiences and media from every corner of the world - and those involved in the production that summer in Ivye were forever changed.